Page 78 of Tempting Tessa

“Okay,” I whisper, because I don’t have the energy to fight. “Okay. You handle it.”

“Good girl.” He brushes his lips against mine, soft and reassuring. “Now, let’s get you home. You need to rest.”

He stands and helps me up, one hand on my elbow, the other resting protectively on the small of my back. The entire restaurant watches us leave, a hundred pairs of eyes tracking our every move. I keep my chin up, refusing to let them see how shattered I am.

As we step into the sunlight, I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the restaurant window. The girl staring back at me looks nothing like the independent, self-sufficient woman I thought I was.

But when Matteo’s hand slides from my back to rest on my belly, warm and possessive, I feel a strange sense of calm settle over me. Maybe I don’t have to look independent all the time. Maybe letting someone else handle the messy shit doesn’t make me weak—it makes me smart.

I’m still running my own company. Still making decisions that matter. Still the girl who built an empire from scratch. But now I have a man who tends to my every whim, who worships my body even as it changes, who handles the ugly parts so I don’t have to.

Maybe that’s not losing my independence—maybe it’s just evolving it.

I love how Matteo handles me. Love how he takes control when everything’s falling apart. Love how he knows exactly what I need before I do.

I love⁠—

Nope. Not going there.

Absolutely not going there. It’s the baby hormones, thank you very much.

Chapter 25

Matteo

I’ve faced down men who wanted me dead, negotiated with dons, and stared into the barrel of a loaded gun without blinking. But walking into this gym to talk with Conrad Gallo is the hardest thing I’ve ever done because of history.

I push through the heavy glass door of the boxing gym we’ve been members of for over two decades. The smell hits me first—sweat, leather, and the metallic tang of blood. It’s a place where men come to beat the shit out of each other in the name of fitness, where we’ve sparred hundreds of times, where we’ve bled together, laughed together, built a friendship that should have lasted until we were old men wheezing on park benches.

Conrad is already in the ring, his back to me, hands wrapped and ready. He’s wearing black shorts and a white tank that shows off the tattoos snaking down his arms. At forty-four, he’s still built like he could go twelve rounds with someone half his age.

I drop my gym bag by the ring and start wrapping my own hands. The ritual calms me—the familiar tightness of the tape, the methodical process that gives me time to think.

“You came,” Conrad says without turning around.

“Did you think I wouldn’t?”

He shrugs, still not looking at me. “I wasn’t sure you had the balls.”

I finish wrapping my right hand and move to the left. “You called, I came. That’s how this works.”

“Does it?” He finally turns, and the look in his eyes makes my gut clench. “I thought that was how our friendship worked. But apparently, I was wrong.”

I climb through the ropes, keeping my movements slow and deliberate. “We’re not here to talk about friendship.”

“No?” he raises an eyebrow. “What are we here for, then? To pretend everything’s fine? To spar like nothing’s changed?”

I stand across from him, my weight balanced evenly on both feet. “You called me here, Conrad. You tell me.”

His jaw works, the muscle jumping beneath his stubble. “My daughter. My twenty-three-year-old daughter. Six months pregnant. With your baby.”

There it is. The thing that’s been hanging between us since Sunday. The thing that’s been eating him alive for three days.

“Yes,” I say simply.

His fist comes out of nowhere—fast, precise, catching me on the jaw. The impact snaps my head to the side, but I don’t go down. I’ve taken worse hits from better fighters.

“That’s for lying to me,” he snarls, shaking out his hand.